Bumper Crop of Apprentices

Kingston Maurward College is helping to fill the skills black hole in the farming industry after taking on a record number of agricultural apprentices.

The Dorset land-based college has doubled the number of students choosing to study Level 2 Agricultural Apprentices at the campus, compared to last year.

Recent IGD research claims the farming industry desperately needs to recruit an additional 60,000 workers during the coming decade to ensure agriculture in the UK maintains its skills base and avoids a fall in production.

Farming faces tough competition from other rural enterprises for its share of agricultural students and the IGD study confirms graduates are increasingly seeking careers in land management positions.

UCAS has also noted a fall during the past decade in the number of young people applying for agriculturally-related courses and both LANTRA and DEFRA have launched initiatives to try and get more young people into farming.

"We have shown we can attract the best young talent into the farming industry this year," said Andy Daw, agriculture curriculum manager, at Kingston Maurward.

"We are doing this by offering a range of quality courses giving students the chance to acquire a breadth of agricultural knowledge and attain a real depth to their practical farming experience.

Twenty-eight students have signed up this autumn for agricultural Level 2 apprentices at the Dorchester campus, and five at Level 3 – the highest total number at any one time at the college.

Under the scheme, apprentices combine full-time employment with one-day per week study in college and work towards achieving an NVQ2 in mixed farming.

Students can then specialise in a specific area of the industry at NVQ3 such as dairy breeding or cattle husbandry.

For those students who don’t wish to complete an NVQ, a practical-based college certificate is available.